NATO phonetic alphabet - also known as the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet or military alphabet. The NATO phonetic alphabet is often confused with the IPA because of the occurrence of "phonetic" in its name. However, the NATO alphabet is a cipher of the Latin alphabet, while the IPA strives for one-to-one representation of the sounds of all spoken languages.

↑ 6.06.16.2This is the compromise IPA transcription used in the entries of Wikipedia articles. It covers most dialects of English.

↑Pronounced [ɾ] in some positions in GA and Australian English, and is possible in RP in words like butter, [ʔ] in some positions in English English, American English and Australian English, and [t̞] non-initially in Irish English.

↑In some dialects (e.g. Brummie) "ringer", "sing" etc are pronounced with an additional /ɡ/, like "finger": /ˈɹɪŋɡə/ rather than /ˈɹɪŋə/

↑[ɫ] traditionally does not occur in Irish English, though this is changing; [l] does not occur in Australian, New Zealand, Scottish, or American English. RP and some other English accents, along with South African English, however, have clear [l] in syllable onsets and dark [ɫ] in syllable rimes.

↑The tap [ɾ] is found in some varieties of Scottish and Irish English.

↑Sometimes transcribed for GA as [əɹ], especially in transcriptions that represent both rhotic and non-rhotic pronunciations, as [ə(ɹ)].

↑In Welsh English, you, yew and ewe are /juː/, /jɪu/ and /ɪu respectively; in all other varieties of English they are homophones.

↑ 26.026.1In Canadian English, the raised diphthongs [ʌi] and [ʌu] are found before voiceless consonants, as in right[ɹʷʌit] and out[ʌut]; in other environments, [aɪ] and [aʊ] are used. In much of US English, this happens with /ʌɪ/, primarily when what would originally be the [aɪ] sound precedes are "hard" consonent (k, f and t being hard, but not g, v and t, so the diphthongs of dike, life and sight are different from tiger, live and side). See Canadian raising.

↑>Roach (2004:241–243), pp. 21–22, 25–26. Roach notes that many people in England use /ɔː/ for this vowel, but also that RP is supposed to distinguish between maw /mɔː/ and moor /mʊə/, tore /tɔː/ and tour /tʊə/, paw /pɔː/ and poor /pʊə/.